0:00

Hey, it's Dave. And before

0:02

we start the show, I

0:04

just want to let you

0:06

know I'm running an audience

0:08

survey and I would love

0:10

to hear your feedback about

0:13

this show. Simply go

0:15

to schoolapodcasting .com/survey 25 that's

0:17

schoolapodcasting .com/survey 25. I

0:21

am in a loud building

0:23

flashing back like it's 1970

0:25

and I'm five years old

0:27

because I'm looking at is

0:29

that what I think it

0:32

is? Yep. It's an ashtray.

0:35

I'm flashing back because I'm

0:37

in a bowling alley and

0:39

all sorts of weirdness is

0:41

going on because it's not

0:43

a normal bowling alley. What

0:46

is it? And what does this

0:48

have to do with podcasting? A

0:50

lot. There's a lot of lessons

0:52

and some tips to give you

0:55

the courage to press record and

0:57

an AI prompt to reinvent your

0:59

interviews. Hit it, ladies. The

1:02

School of Podcasting

1:05

with Dave Jackson. Podcasting

1:08

since 2005. I am your

1:11

award -winning Hall of Fame podcast

1:13

coach Dave Jackson, thanking you so

1:15

much for tuning in. If

1:17

you're new to the show, welcome

1:19

aboard. This is where I

1:21

help you plan. I help you

1:24

launch. I help you grow

1:26

your podcast. If you want to

1:28

monetize, yep, we can do

1:30

that too. My website is SchoolofPodcasting

1:32

.com. Use the coupon code listener

1:34

that's L -I -S -T -E -N -E -R

1:37

when you sign up for

1:39

either a monthly or yearly subscription.

1:41

And of course, that comes

1:43

with a 30 -day money back

1:45

guarantee. And so, yeah, I ended

1:47

up doing what's called duck

1:49

pin bowling. And the first weird

1:52

thing about it was the

1:54

ashtray. I was like, wait, what?

1:56

And the ball. Calls coming

1:58

back did not, there was no

2:00

automatic where like, you know,

2:02

it sucks the ball out and

2:05

that whole, it was very

2:07

like, I don't know, 1956. But

2:10

I was in Indianapolis this

2:12

weekend speaking at Pod Indy had

2:14

a great time. It was what they

2:16

call an intimate affair. And

2:19

so we had a great time and at the end of

2:21

it, I don't know, a half

2:23

a mile from where we held the event.

2:26

There was duck pin bowling. And

2:28

so being that I'd never gone duck

2:30

pin bowling, they said, hey,

2:32

you should stick around and go. And

2:34

so I did. And

2:37

first of all, let's get the obvious out of

2:39

the way. And that is what the

2:41

heck is duck pin bowling? And

2:44

the balls in duck

2:46

pin bowling are about five inches in

2:48

diameter. They weigh

2:50

about four pounds. And

2:52

the actual pins, the duck

2:54

pins are shorter and

2:56

lighter than your typical 10 pin

2:58

kind of bowling, what I will

3:01

call normal bowling, which makes

3:03

them more challenging to knock down.

3:05

And as they're set up in the

3:07

same kind of triangle because they're

3:09

smaller, it looks the same, but there's

3:11

more space between the pins. And

3:14

basically in the normal way you

3:16

bowl, you get two tries to

3:18

knock them down as this is

3:20

harder as you find out. You

3:22

get three. Everything else is

3:24

pretty much the same. And

3:27

so I'm doing something for

3:29

the first time. That's one

3:31

of the reasons I stuck around. I'm like,

3:33

I've never heard of duck pin bowling. I

3:35

get a chance to go duck pin bowling

3:37

with Dr. Brad Miller, Jen from

3:39

Bourbon Barrel podcasting, Larry Roberts, the

3:41

red hat guy, Chris Commitzos

3:44

from Podfast. I mean, a whole

3:46

bunch of people. And

3:48

it was fun, but

3:50

there was a couple of things I was

3:52

like, oh, this is so podcasting. So

3:54

first thing, when you think about it, I

3:57

don't know why, but people

3:59

people seem to

4:02

refrain about asking for

4:04

feedback. I'm like, hey,

4:06

have you pulled your audience? And

4:08

we're gonna be talking about polls

4:10

and audiences over the next couple of

4:12

weeks here. Hey,

4:14

this is Future Dave jumping in. I'll

4:16

tell you about a survey tool

4:19

from PodPage towards the end of this

4:21

episode. It's so cool. Back to

4:23

the show! But I'm really into them.

4:25

I think they're, I'm a teacher.

4:27

As a teacher, we all want feedback

4:29

so we can make the course

4:31

better. And when you think about

4:33

it, when you are bowling, whether

4:36

it's duck pin or normal, you

4:39

get instant feedback.

4:42

And podcasting offers insights

4:46

through audience engagement and

4:48

metrics, which help you refine your

4:50

approach. So there was one thing that was

4:52

kind of funny. We think we got it. Like

4:54

we kind of walk in and

4:56

the first thing I noticed is no bowling shoes. I'm

4:58

like, wait, no bowling shoes? like, nope. And

5:01

I see the ball smaller and people are throwing it

5:03

to the knockdown pins. I'm like, oh, I got

5:05

this. All right, everything's just smaller and you get three

5:07

attempts. Got it, no big deal. And

5:10

I get up and I'm not

5:12

a great bowler. Like if I

5:15

were to bowl, like back in the

5:17

day, it was somewhere between 130

5:19

points to maybe a little over 200. I

5:21

usually had, if I bowled three or four

5:23

games, I'd have one good one, one bad and

5:25

two that were meh. And so I'm

5:27

like, all right, I got this. It looks easy, right?

5:29

It really looks easy. And so

5:32

I get up there and I'm

5:34

kind of like, okay, this is gonna

5:36

be weird because you slide that last

5:38

step to the pins,

5:40

you slide and I'm like, okay, I'm not

5:42

gonna slide in my shoes here and

5:45

I'm figuring out and I got the ball

5:47

and it's weird because you don't put your

5:49

fingers in the hole because there are no holes.

5:51

It's like throwing a really heavy, slightly

5:54

oversized softball. And

5:57

so I get up and take my four steps, I

5:59

let my arm throw. And I think the

6:01

first time I might have hit

6:03

some pins, but I'm here to tell

6:05

you, if somebody were to bet

6:07

on this, I'd go just bet

6:09

on me hitting pin number 10,

6:11

the way over, the one way

6:14

over there on the right-hand side,

6:16

that last one. Yep, nope, none

6:18

of the other ones. Let's leave

6:20

the other nine pins, just that

6:22

one. I'm going to hit that

6:24

one. And it was not as

6:26

easy as it looked. And so

6:28

if you think about this

6:30

podcasting, well you just talk

6:33

into a microphone, maybe call

6:35

up some of your friends, talk

6:37

for three hours and they give

6:39

you hundreds of millions

6:41

of dollars. Yeah, that's not the

6:43

way it works. And if you think

6:45

about it, I had no hurdles

6:47

in front of me. I had

6:50

10 pins, nothing blocking them. Zero.

6:52

All I had to do was throw the

6:54

ball in a way that it did

6:56

not go into the gutters. And there

6:58

was nothing, it wasn't like the

7:00

lane was slanted to where they

7:02

would roll into the gutters, the

7:04

lane was flat. It was just me

7:06

being able to control my arm and

7:09

let go with the ball with the

7:11

right velocity. And I'm used to spinning

7:13

the ball, like I normally kind of

7:16

spin it in the hoops on in

7:18

there. Yeah, I'm here to tell you. There

7:20

was a lot going on and not a

7:22

lot of pins going down. But that

7:24

was instant feedback. And so...

7:26

after throwing a few frames of

7:28

stuff, I'm like, okay, this isn't

7:31

working. And so that was about

7:33

a third of the game. I think

7:35

at that point, I'm like, this

7:37

is not working. And I was just

7:40

literally constantly just, you'd watch

7:42

me get up there and

7:44

throw, I'm lining up on

7:46

the left-hand side of the

7:48

lane, if not in the gutter.

7:50

And so you start a podcast.

7:53

And you're like, okay. I

7:55

started off, I had, you know, whatever, 17

7:57

downloads and then the next one it was

7:59

this and... It's just not going the right way. That

8:02

happens, but you're getting feedback.

8:05

And hopefully, right, if

8:07

we were smart, back in the day

8:09

when I would bowl, you usually got a

8:11

couple of practice, you had a

8:13

couple of practice before the game started. I

8:16

don't think we did this. I, we

8:18

might've had one or two, but then

8:20

we started, but there wasn't a lot of

8:22

practice. So that

8:24

would be the first lesson. Maybe practice

8:26

a little more before starting the

8:29

game. So maybe you should get

8:31

some feedback. Cause I got

8:33

feedback the minute I threw that first one.

8:35

I was like, oh, this is weird

8:37

without sliding. This is weird

8:39

without shoes. This is

8:41

weird without putting my fingers in the holes.

8:43

And one ball, like somebody had taken a bite

8:45

out of it. You'd throw it, that thing to

8:47

go all sorts of weird ways. So

8:50

you are getting feedback. And

8:52

so after about three or

8:54

four, whatever you call

8:56

it, frames, I was like, all right, I'm

8:59

really used to sliding. So I

9:01

took my shoes off. I luckily had

9:03

one of those old person kind of shoes where

9:05

you just slipping in and out. Those are

9:07

really what I call my traveling shoes. Cause I

9:10

usually when you travel, I have to take,

9:12

you know, untie your shoes and get on a

9:14

plane, all that. I drove this time, but

9:16

I still had my, my traveling shoes on. And

9:19

got up and slid and it kind

9:21

of helped. And then about three frames

9:23

later, I'm like, yep, it's not the

9:25

sliding thing. Now, what

9:27

was interesting, just like

9:30

in podcasting, everybody has

9:32

different approaches. Chris

9:34

Kamitsos had the taking

9:36

out some childhood issues, kind of

9:38

vibe when he threw the ball

9:40

and that it was about 900

9:42

miles an hour. And you

9:44

were kind of thinking that if he

9:46

hit pins, they would shatter into a

9:48

million pieces. That was kind

9:51

of fun. Larry Roberts, Red

9:53

Hat Media was kind

9:55

of like me trying to

9:57

bowl like you bowl, except

9:59

this. ball was so small and I can't get it

10:01

to go where I want it to go. So

10:05

it didn't make any sense

10:07

for me to try Chris's approach,

10:09

because it, you know, I tried

10:11

a little bit of that, tried a bit of

10:13

a little Larry, but in the end, it was

10:15

up to me to control the

10:18

ball so that it goes

10:20

where it needs to be to

10:22

hit the pins and your content is

10:24

the same way. I

10:26

know my actions

10:28

resonated when pins fell

10:31

down and with you

10:33

and podcasting, you might resonate

10:35

by numbers going up and downloads

10:37

by emails and comments coming

10:39

in, maybe by reviews showing up

10:41

in Apple, whatever it is,

10:43

there are ways to tell if

10:45

the show is going okay. But

10:48

in the end, it

10:50

really came down to

10:52

mastering the basics. Just

10:54

like in Duck Pin Bowling, where

10:57

the fundamentals of aiming

10:59

and technique are crucial,

11:02

podcasting requires a pretty

11:04

solid grasp of content

11:06

creation and delivery. I

11:08

talked about this in my talk at Pod

11:10

Indy, one of them I actually spoke four times,

11:13

and it is. You have content,

11:16

that's great. You need great content.

11:19

I listened to the book Earn

11:21

It and they brought up an example.

11:23

They said your content should have three

11:25

things. Think of your head, think

11:28

of your heart, and think of

11:30

your feet because it

11:32

should be stimulating to the brain. It

11:34

should be smart content. It

11:36

should be content that touches your heart. How

11:38

do you want your audience to feel? And

11:42

then can you create that

11:44

kind of content? Dave got it, got

11:46

the heart and the head. Great. Can you

11:48

do that on this particular schedule? In

11:50

other words, can you keep doing this? Can

11:53

you endure the process of

11:55

creating content? And

11:58

you have a target. Right

12:00

with podcasting you have your

12:02

target audience and I use

12:04

the analogy of making dinner if you

12:06

held a dinner and made pizza,

12:09

you know, like well, everybody loves

12:11

pizza until everybody shows up and

12:13

they're like, is that gluten

12:15

free? Like, oh, oh, didn't know that,

12:17

okay. And somebody else goes, yeah, I'm

12:19

vegan, I can't do pepperoni. Like,

12:21

oh, didn't think of that. But, and

12:24

there's part of you that goes, wait,

12:26

if I make a pizza just

12:28

for... people that like meat and

12:30

don't have gluten issues. I'm cutting

12:32

out some of my audience. It's

12:34

not about having an audience for

12:36

everyone, because that doesn't work.

12:38

It's about having the right people,

12:41

the right people listening that you are

12:43

trying to connect with. So keep that

12:45

in mind. But the one thing you

12:48

need in podcasting is adaptability.

12:50

At the event, we had an

12:52

interesting situation where we had

12:54

this beautiful room set up

12:56

with chairs. And we had

12:59

a projector and I'm not sure

13:01

when Brad picked the site,

13:03

he might have actually visited

13:05

it in the evening because it

13:07

had a giant skylight in

13:09

the ceiling and the one wall

13:12

was nothing but windows. Well,

13:14

when you're trying to show

13:16

slides, it's kind of somewhat

13:18

important that the room

13:21

is somewhat dark and this room

13:23

was not. And so myself

13:25

and Craig Van Slike from... AI

13:27

goes to college we had to

13:29

adapt and it's actually a

13:31

really good thing because I'm thinking

13:34

about this now that I actually

13:36

want to start making my

13:38

presentations without slides get

13:41

the stories together make it

13:43

in an entertaining fashion present

13:46

any kind of facts in a

13:48

way that doesn't you know step

13:50

towards death by PowerPoint and

13:52

then add the slides. To enhance

13:54

the presentation I already have but

13:56

you have to be adaptable. I

13:59

say it all the time your podcast

14:01

is a recipe, it's not

14:03

a statue. And so the

14:05

challenge of switching from

14:07

regular bowling to duck

14:10

pin bowling, it mirrors the

14:12

need to adapt in

14:14

podcasting, whether it's trying

14:17

new formats, new techniques,

14:19

and you kind of tweak

14:21

it until you start to

14:23

see some things change. The

14:25

other thing that, again, we

14:27

kind of saw. is it seemed

14:29

simple that really did. If

14:32

you think about it, I

14:34

mentioned it before, there's nothing

14:36

between you and the pins.

14:38

Like besides, I don't know,

14:40

30 feet, something like that, if

14:43

it's that. And the pins and

14:45

bowling is creating great

14:47

content. But the reality

14:49

is often much more

14:51

complex. You have to know your why,

14:53

you have to know your who, specifically

14:56

who. is your who, and then

14:58

your what is where the why

15:00

and who overlap. And success involves

15:03

more than just one main

15:05

action. It's about refining

15:07

your craft and embracing all

15:10

those aspects of the process.

15:12

Because you could have great

15:14

content, but if you had horrible

15:16

delivery and you said, this is

15:18

how I'm going to tell you

15:21

how to make a million dollar,

15:23

that would be awful. You need

15:25

content, you need need delivery.

15:27

Does your artwork grab people?

15:30

Does your title grab people? Does

15:32

the title of the show grab

15:34

people? There are a lot of

15:37

moving parts here. And so one

15:39

thing I didn't do, I mean I

15:41

scanned a little while I was

15:43

walking into the place, was I

15:45

didn't compare myself to others.

15:47

Now Larry and I were

15:50

sometimes close and score. And

15:52

the last half of game,

15:54

Chris was just killing us, but

15:56

I really didn't look at

15:58

my competition. Because if

16:00

you look at bowling, if you look

16:03

at tennis, if you look at

16:05

golf, even though you play with

16:07

other people, it's really you.

16:09

It's just you. And it was up

16:11

to me to keep my arm

16:13

straight, which I failed miserably

16:16

at. It was just me that

16:18

had to figure out what speed

16:20

of the ball I wanted to throw,

16:22

where how far I wanted to

16:24

throw it out. It was all

16:27

me. I was the only person.

16:29

That could affect my game. And

16:31

it's kind of the same thing

16:33

with your podcast. It's you creating

16:36

the content. And you

16:38

can edit, hopefully, or you cannot

16:40

edit. I heard an episode this

16:42

week where they were talking about

16:45

how they don't edit, and it

16:47

sounded like they were on respirators.

16:49

And I was like, maybe you

16:51

need to edit. I don't know.

16:53

Should you edit? I think you

16:55

should. Couldn't believe it.

16:57

But that's the way it

16:59

is. It's up to you.

17:01

It's your brand. Don't

17:04

obsess over that to

17:06

where you never release

17:08

anything, but it is

17:10

up to you. And in the

17:13

end, here's the beauty

17:15

of it, is you have to

17:17

love the process of

17:20

making content. You

17:22

just have to. And in

17:24

this case, the fun and...

17:26

the camaraderie with my friends

17:29

and bowling. That is similar

17:32

to the passion you have

17:34

to have with podcasting. I

17:36

didn't care what my score was.

17:39

I was trying to do the best

17:41

I could, but in the end,

17:43

I didn't get anywhere near

17:45

what I would normally bowl.

17:48

And it was kind of

17:50

funny because At first we're like,

17:52

hey, this is new, this is different,

17:54

woo, okay, all right, hey, you hit

17:56

something, good for you. You know, Larry

17:58

actually got a spare. believe it

18:01

we all went nuts because

18:03

nobody had gotten a spare

18:05

yet and we were enthused and

18:07

inspired it was like great

18:09

awesome but in the end after

18:11

if you think about it if

18:14

you're bowling and you get three

18:16

tries in a game you get 30

18:18

attempts to you know hit some

18:20

pins and yeah I never got a

18:23

spare I often the one time

18:25

I hit no pins I had three

18:27

attempts to hit pins and I hit

18:29

a goose egg, nothing, zero, nada. And

18:31

so what I do this again, it was

18:34

kind of funny because at one point,

18:36

I looked at Larry, and we're, again,

18:38

we're all changing our formats. We're

18:40

trying different aspects of this, maybe

18:42

faster, slower. I know at one point,

18:45

I moved to the right, and that

18:47

actually kind of worked. I think I

18:49

got seven that time. You try

18:51

different things, but I looked at Larry

18:54

and he looked at me and goes, why

18:56

is this so hard. And I

18:58

thought about it. I was like, well,

19:00

I think a lot of it is for

19:02

me, I have, I usually kind

19:04

of spin my hand when I

19:06

have my fingers in a ball, which

19:09

I didn't. And so I was

19:11

used to spinning my hand and

19:13

the process is spinning my

19:15

hand. I just threw it almost

19:17

out of the lane. But I was having

19:20

a great time doing horrible

19:22

at bowling. And so when you

19:24

first start off, it's new. I've

19:26

never done this. We've all been

19:29

talking our whole life, so it

19:31

looks easy. You're like, yeah, I

19:33

think I can talk. You just got

19:35

to talk into this microphone in

19:37

a way that makes you sound

19:40

either entertaining or

19:42

educational or inspirational

19:44

something there, right? It's

19:46

content and delivery. And when

19:48

you first start out and you

19:50

don't get the results you

19:53

think, you have to love the craft.

19:55

I love... Like here, I was just like I

19:57

wonder if I have sound effects for bowling. Let's

19:59

paint that picture in there. Let's

20:01

do this. Let's do that. How am I going

20:03

to explain that? And then I was like, as

20:05

I was driving back home, I was like, you

20:07

know, I could do like a cold open, which

20:09

you just heard kind of explaining. And

20:11

how could I do this in the theater of

20:13

the mind, where I slowly mentioned, I'm looking

20:15

at an ashtray, I'm in a loud room and

20:18

then expand back to I am in a

20:20

bowling alley, is that going to trigger the theater

20:22

of the mind? And maybe

20:24

it did, maybe it didn't. But I'm trying

20:26

different things. And when things work, I do

20:28

more of those. And when they don't, I

20:30

try not to do those anymore. And

20:32

one of the things Craig said from, again,

20:35

AI goes to college, because I would do a

20:37

half hour, then Craig would do a half

20:39

hour, then I would do a half hour, and

20:41

Craig would do a half hour. I was

20:43

talking about monetizing your podcast, and Craig would come

20:45

up and explain some AI tools

20:47

to help make that easier. And

20:49

it was very nice of him, Craig's a member of the

20:51

school of podcasting. So is Dr. Brad Miller. And

20:54

Craig said, if you don't want

20:56

to do this alone, there's a

20:58

really easy solution for that. And that is

21:00

join the school of podcasting, which

21:02

was very nice of him to say, we

21:04

do have group coaching every Friday, we

21:07

do lunch with Dave, we have group coaching

21:09

on a Saturday. And then we

21:11

have group coaching on a Wednesday. And of

21:13

course, you can always schedule unlimited coaching with

21:15

me. And when you say, what do you mean by

21:17

unlimited? I mean, there are no limits to the amount

21:19

of coaching you can have for me. And

21:21

that's kind of why if somebody said, well, do

21:24

you want to go duck pin bowling again? If

21:26

they said, well, I

21:29

would answer, well, is Brad

21:31

and Debbie and Jen and

21:33

John and Larry and Chris going to

21:35

be there? Absolutely. Because

21:37

that made it worth it. I

21:40

now have a memory

21:42

being in Indianapolis, bowling

21:44

with primarily Larry

21:46

and Chris. And

21:48

that to me has

21:50

value. And when you

21:53

start a podcast, I

21:55

have that kind of running little joke

21:57

that you're either going to start a

21:59

podcast when you do this and you're going to

22:01

either end up with a story about

22:03

the time you started a podcast or

22:05

you're going to end up with a

22:08

really good podcast. And if you've already

22:10

tried a podcast once and it wasn't

22:12

for you, then maybe you weren't talking

22:14

about the right thing. And maybe you

22:16

didn't have the right mentality for that.

22:18

Maybe you were really focused on the

22:20

wrong thing. It's all about figuring out

22:22

who your audience is What do they

22:25

want? Give it to them? Ask them

22:27

to share. And there are many other

22:29

ways to grow your show. But as

22:31

I was driving back, I was like,

22:33

wow, that was really frustrating. Why was

22:35

it frustrating? Because I did something I've

22:37

never done before. And can you think

22:39

of anything you ever did from tying

22:42

your shoes to riding a bike to

22:44

shooting a basketball that it was amazing

22:46

the first time you did it? Yeah,

22:48

me either. So keep that in mind.

22:50

And in fact, we're going to switch

22:52

gears here, and I'm going to talk

22:54

to John, who was at Podindie, and

22:56

he had 30 episodes and had not

22:58

released any of them. So let's switch

23:01

gears. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I will

23:03

be talking about an AI prompt that

23:05

was amazing. This podcast has chapters, so

23:07

if you want to skip. But I

23:09

want to talk to John, because John

23:11

had like 30 different episodes. And I

23:13

want to share this with you, because

23:15

you might think like John thinks, there's

23:18

nothing wrong with the way you think,

23:20

but sometimes we make things a little

23:22

harder than we think they are. And

23:24

so he was explaining how he's just

23:26

not really a computer person. And I

23:28

go, that's fine. And I was telling

23:30

him about, I had a student that

23:32

was kind of in the same boat

23:35

that didn't really have any skills when

23:37

it came to file management. And I

23:39

said, I just walked somebody through through

23:41

that. He goes, do you have a

23:43

course on that? I go, no, but

23:45

I could make one in about 10

23:47

minutes. I go. it's really

23:49

not that hard.

23:51

I said, have you

23:54

ever played with

23:56

violin cabinets? He's like,

23:58

oh yeah, my

24:00

whole life. I'm like,

24:02

well, it's the

24:04

same thing. It's just with

24:06

a mouse. It's really not that

24:08

hard. And then we were talking

24:10

about mixing audio and things like that. Have you

24:13

ever been in the car and your jam

24:15

comes on? You grab the knob and you turn

24:17

it up and you're like, yes, my gym! And

24:20

then the phone rings. So you

24:22

turn down the radio so you can hear the

24:24

phone. Well, then you know how to mix music. Have

24:27

you ever attached a photo

24:29

on Facebook or in

24:31

an email or whatever? Well,

24:33

then you can upload an MP3

24:35

file to your media host. Whoever that

24:37

is, Captivate, Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Blueberry,

24:41

rss .com, there are a billion of them.

24:43

I do have courses on those. Then

24:45

you can do this. Sometimes I think we

24:47

make it harder in our head and

24:51

I explain to him, I'm like, I can

24:53

help you through the whole thing. And

24:55

he said, well, I don't even understand. Like

24:57

my friend says, I need file management. I go,

24:59

I can teach you that. I

25:01

taught in the corporate world for many, many

25:04

moons. I've been doing this so long, I

25:06

used to teach people how to use their

25:08

fax machine. I taught people how to send

25:10

email because they didn't know what it was. But

25:13

one of the things I taught over and over and

25:15

over because if you don't have it, you're

25:17

gonna waste a lot of your life is file

25:19

management. He said, do you have a course

25:21

right now? He could take. I said, no, but I can make you a

25:23

video in about 10 minutes and walk

25:25

you through that. I said, or if you want, you

25:27

just sign up and then

25:29

schedule some time and we can go over it. It's

25:32

really that easy. And so I know

25:34

a lot of us think, I

25:37

can't do this, but think about

25:39

it. I'll go back to what I

25:41

mentioned before. There was a time when tying

25:43

your shoes was difficult. There was

25:45

a time when riding a bike

25:47

was difficult. There was a time when

25:49

programming the VCR was difficult. There

25:52

was a time when moving

25:54

a mouse. I remember the first time I moved

25:56

a mouse. I was like, I can't control

25:58

this thing. And yet,

26:00

I said it in a few

26:02

episodes ago, everything is hard

26:04

until it's not. And

26:07

if you're looking for a place

26:09

to have somebody go, whoa, just

26:11

move a little bit to the

26:13

left, a little more to the

26:15

right, there you go, now click.

26:17

Or whatever it is, that's what

26:19

I do at the school of

26:21

podcasting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was

26:23

very cool to watch Craig from

26:26

AI Goes to College, Find Him

26:28

at AIGoesToCollege .com, present on these

26:30

tools. And so, the one prompt,

26:32

I was like, you have gotta

26:34

be kidding me. And here's the

26:36

thing, Craig kind of has the

26:38

same philosophy about AI as I

26:40

do. And that is, it shouldn't

26:42

be used to create the content,

26:44

but you can use it to

26:47

polish the content. Because otherwise, you're

26:49

gonna end up sounding silly if

26:51

you haven't write a script. And

26:53

you're like, today we're going to

26:55

take a deep dive and delve

26:57

into duck pin bowling. Well, I

26:59

don't talk like that. And so,

27:01

you want it to come from

27:03

you. And so, Craig was saying

27:06

there are times when he will,

27:08

if he writes a script, he'll

27:10

throw it in and use AI,

27:12

whether it's chat GPT or Claude,

27:14

to critique and say, what is

27:16

this missing? How can this be

27:18

more clear? How can it be

27:20

more succinct? And it will give

27:22

him suggestions. And so, it is

27:24

an assistant to you to help

27:27

you do this. And there's a

27:29

voice version that you can turn

27:31

on and talk to this thing

27:33

like it's a person. Larry Roberts

27:35

was there and opened up his

27:37

phone and did that. And I

27:39

was like, wait, what? And it's,

27:41

if you've ever seen those science

27:43

fiction movies where they're, you know,

27:46

how's not here, Dave? That kind

27:48

of thing, it's a little freaky.

27:50

Actually, it's not a little freaky.

27:52

It's a lot freaky. And so,

27:54

I'm gonna try this now. I'm

27:56

gonna pull this. I watched Larry

27:58

do this. So, if you think

28:00

this. This is cool, you should see what Larry does.

28:02

But I'm gonna hit a button

28:05

on my phone, I've loaded

28:07

ChatGPT, and I'm gonna click

28:09

on this button for speakers,

28:11

and I'm now gonna turn

28:13

on my microphone, I believe,

28:15

I'm hitting the button, there we

28:17

go. Hey, chat, are you there? I

28:19

am indeed, how can I help you

28:21

today? Well, I'm doing an episode

28:24

about how bowling and podcasting

28:26

have similar traits. What

28:29

do you think of that idea? That's

28:31

a creative and fun idea.

28:33

Both bowling and podcasting require

28:35

a good amount of skill

28:37

and technique, whether it's perfecting

28:39

your throw or your podcasting

28:41

style. There's also the need

28:43

for consistency. In bowling, you

28:45

aim for that strike every

28:47

time, while in podcasting, you

28:49

strive to produce engaging content

28:51

consistently. Plus, both have their

28:54

unique communities and can be

28:56

social activities. It sounds like

28:58

a great way to draw

29:00

parallels and entertain your

29:02

listeners. Hey, thanks so much for

29:04

chiming in. You're welcome. If you

29:07

need more ideas or help with

29:09

anything else, just let me know.

29:11

And so that's kind of freaky,

29:13

right? And again, be careful not

29:15

to have that create the content. Now

29:18

he said that, and I'm going to

29:20

tell you about a prompt. where

29:22

it's going to help you create

29:25

the content. However, that's

29:27

not the final step. Again,

29:29

use it to polish, to inspire

29:32

you. And so I saw Craig

29:34

from A.I. Goes to College.com

29:36

do this. And since Brad

29:38

Miller was there from Cancer

29:41

and Comedy and the founder

29:43

of potindy.com, he went

29:45

to the chat cheapity prompt

29:48

and said, hey. My podcast,

29:50

one of Craig's podcast is Live

29:52

Well and Flourish. She's like, I'm

29:55

doing an interview of Dr. Brad

29:57

Miller for the show Live Well and

29:59

Flourish. I would like to

30:01

come up with questions that

30:04

haven't been asked of Brad

30:07

Miller before. And if

30:09

you could, some of these

30:11

are going to be used for YouTube shorts. If

30:14

you could bold those, that would

30:16

be great. Now, that's not an exact

30:18

quote, but I just tried this myself

30:20

and said I'm interviewing, you know, I'm

30:22

an entrepreneur and I'm interviewing Dave Jackson,

30:25

but I don't want to have questions that have

30:27

been asked over and over and over. Can you give me

30:29

some new ones? And some of this is going to

30:31

be used again for YouTube shorts, put those in

30:33

bold. And it did. And

30:36

I was like, oh, now, were all of

30:38

them like home runs? Nope,

30:40

but it was amazing because the ones, I remember

30:43

when I first looked at this, I was like,

30:45

hey, some of these are like really easy and

30:47

I've definitely answered these before. Well, those

30:49

were the ones for YouTube shorts. And

30:52

so there's a great book again called

30:54

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective

30:56

People. And one of those habits is start

30:58

with the end in mind. And so

31:00

if you're a YouTuber and

31:03

you're gonna be doing shorts, you

31:05

might ask questions that

31:08

would maybe be a super simple question.

31:10

You're like, normally we wouldn't ask this

31:12

person, but I'm gonna ask this because

31:14

the question would be great, not so

31:16

much clickbait, but it's gonna be something that

31:18

people are gonna wanna click on to

31:20

see what is the answer to

31:22

that. And so you might

31:24

have some questions in there. If

31:27

you're doing video that you go, you know

31:29

what, this is gonna make a great short. And

31:31

so you ask those questions. As

31:34

always, it's your show. You

31:36

can do what you want, keep in mind, you don't have

31:38

to do video, but if you

31:40

want to, absolutely you should be

31:42

on YouTube. But there's spit out

31:44

a bunch and I don't know that I would use

31:46

all of them, but there were some of

31:48

them. And this is where I

31:50

always go, great ideas are typically

31:53

not fresh out of the

31:55

box. Right, you don't

31:57

go, I think I'm gonna try this and

31:59

then it's just. Brilliant, it's usually

32:01

somebody going, hey, what about this?

32:03

And you go, hmm, not bad,

32:05

but what if we did this?

32:07

And so this is where you

32:09

could use AI to

32:11

somewhat throw out some

32:13

ideas and then you polish

32:16

their work. And

32:18

you could say, hey, I'm not really

32:20

think this one's on target. I don't

32:22

think this one's on target. I do

32:24

like this and you just brainstorm. And

32:27

I was like, that's pretty cool

32:29

because as a creative person, it

32:31

helped me come up with a couple of

32:33

different ways to describe today's episode. And

32:35

I was like, that's interesting.

32:39

And it's something I've

32:41

never done before and I'm

32:43

sure in the future, I'll

32:45

be better at it. The other

32:47

thing I thought we could

32:49

talk about today is

32:51

I already heard this, that

32:54

podcasting is oversaturated. And

32:57

I get that. When I hear somebody say,

32:59

I wanna start a true crime show, there's

33:01

a part of me that goes, oh, really?

33:03

Okay. Because maybe that's

33:05

your passion. I hear

33:07

a lot about true crime, but

33:10

I can't say that

33:12

it's oversaturated because

33:14

if you look at books, as

33:16

I record this, it's November. And

33:19

in a couple months, it's gonna be January. And

33:22

I don't know who it is,

33:24

but there'll be probably two

33:26

or three or four hundred different

33:28

books about how to lose weight.

33:31

It'll sound something like this. Don't

33:33

change a thing about yourself. Don't exercise. Don't

33:35

change the way you eat and you

33:38

can lose weight, which of course is a

33:40

bold face lie. But

33:42

there will be people selling books that say that. Why

33:44

do they sell books that say that? Because people

33:46

buy it because they think it's true, but then they

33:48

find it. They go, oh, it's a lie just

33:50

like it was last year. But there are people writing

33:52

books right now on diet

33:55

and exercise and losing weight as

33:57

they do every January. So

34:00

with that said, yes, there are

34:02

plenty of books. I have many

34:04

of them in my bookcase in

34:06

the living room about losing weight.

34:08

And yet there will be new

34:11

ones in January because not everybody

34:13

is going to write a book

34:15

this year and not everybody, you

34:17

know, as much as 2025 might

34:19

be the year that you launch

34:21

your first podcast. 2025 is gonna

34:24

be somebody that goes, man, I've

34:26

been doing this 20 years, I'm

34:28

out, I'm done. I'm gonna go

34:30

enjoy my grandkids or whatever it

34:32

is. Not me, but there might

34:35

be somebody else that says that.

34:37

So keep that in mind if

34:39

you think something is, well, there's

34:41

too many, it's too busy, it's

34:43

too crowded, things like that. If

34:45

you don't quit, other people will.

34:48

If you don't believe me, go

34:50

over to podcasts aboutpodcasting .com. That's

34:52

a giant list I kind of

34:54

have assembled of all the podcasts

34:56

about podcasting and the bottom third

34:58

of that page is here are

35:01

shows that used to be about

35:03

podcasting and they have since just

35:05

said, well, I'm moving on to

35:07

something else. So if that's something

35:09

else that is kind of stopping

35:12

you from starting a podcast, maybe

35:14

it shouldn't. And the other one

35:16

is why are you waiting till

35:18

January? That's when everybody is going

35:20

to start learning how to podcast.

35:22

If you start now, you could

35:25

be launching in January. It's just

35:27

something to think about and speaking

35:29

of things to think about, here's

35:31

a little more. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

35:33

yeah. Ooh,

35:36

now that's a good

35:38

question. One of the ways

35:40

you can make your

35:42

podcast better is by avoiding

35:44

those things that, well,

35:46

drive people nuts. And so

35:48

we tried this last

35:50

month, had a couple of

35:52

technical difficulties, so we're

35:55

rerunning this question again. And

35:57

that is, what are

35:59

your top podcast pet peeves?

36:01

You know the things

36:03

that make you roll your

36:05

eyes. Maybe hit fast forward, maybe even hit

36:07

Unfellow. I'd love to hear those. You don't have

36:09

to name the show. We're not trying to shame

36:11

people. We're just trying to understand those things that

36:13

drive people nuts so we can avoid them. Now,

36:15

don't forget to mention your show a little bit

36:17

about it and of course your website so I

36:19

can link to it in the episode description.

36:22

Just go to school of

36:24

podcasting.com/question. I need your answer

36:27

by February 21, 2025. Want

36:33

to know more about

36:35

what I think when

36:37

it comes to podcasting?

36:40

Check out my newsletter

36:42

at podcasting observations.com. That's

36:44

podcasting observations.com

36:46

links in the show notes. Yeah

36:49

yeah yeah! Hey this just happened

36:51

as I was recording this. My

36:54

buddy Brendan over at pod

36:56

page where I am now the head

36:58

of podcasting. We are releasing...

37:01

audience surveys. And this

37:03

is so cool. There are 28

37:05

questions, plus five custom

37:07

ones, if you want to make

37:09

up your own questions, that you

37:11

can put on a survey. Now

37:13

I would not recommend

37:15

sending out a survey with 33

37:18

questions on it, but you be

37:20

you. But what we did is

37:22

Edison Research, which has been

37:25

researching, podcasting since

37:27

the very early days. back when

37:29

Tom Webster worked there. And

37:31

they still continue to do research

37:33

and surveys on podcasting. But

37:36

Tom is now part of Sounds

37:38

Profitable, and he has that great

37:40

book that he was talking about,

37:43

the audience is listening, and he

37:45

really gets into audience survey there.

37:47

In fact, we have a link to

37:49

the book in pod page, and if you

37:51

really want to get your head

37:53

around a survey, it's a great book,

37:56

and what we've done with Tom's

37:58

permission. is taking those questions. and put

38:00

them into pod page so all

38:02

you have to do is go in

38:05

and turn on and off the ones

38:07

you want to be on your survey

38:09

and turn it on say

38:12

okay let people start answering

38:14

this but wait there's more

38:16

you could name it something

38:18

like 2024 audience survey

38:21

and it'll probably make

38:23

a link like you

38:26

know your website.com/audience dash

38:28

Well that's too hard to remember.

38:31

So pod page if you just go to

38:33

when you set this up your

38:35

website.com slash survey and it

38:37

will go to whatever survey is

38:39

active making it very easy. So

38:41

next year when you have your 2025

38:44

survey and 2026 survey you can

38:46

just tell people go to survey

38:48

which is great because in your

38:50

back catalog if somebody's listening to

38:53

an old episode and they go

38:55

to slash survey it'll go to

38:57

today's survey. So I'll have a

38:59

video in the show notes where

39:02

you can see this. It's amazing.

39:04

And so we talked about

39:06

today getting feedback from

39:08

the pins. Well, you can

39:11

get feedback from your audience.

39:13

And I know, I know, but Dave, what

39:16

if nobody signs up? We

39:18

have built in incentives.

39:20

You can go in and say when

39:23

somebody signs this up, send

39:25

them this email. that says thank

39:27

you so much for taking part of

39:29

our survey and if you want to

39:32

send them a link to something whatever

39:34

you have swag from fourth wall

39:36

or whatever if you want to give

39:38

them something you could do

39:40

it there completely customizable message

39:43

and you can point them to whatever

39:45

you want or if you want to give

39:47

them a PDF you can do that it's

39:50

all built into it now this is

39:52

beta like this is rolling out as

39:54

you're listening to this today Today's the

39:56

first day. So for some reason you're

39:58

doing something and you're like, hey. This

40:00

looks a little weird or something. Let

40:03

us know and we will make sure

40:05

to squash out any bugs. We've been playing

40:07

with it for a little bit, but

40:09

hey, it's software you never know.

40:12

So how do you make your show better? Well,

40:15

by listening to your audience. And I know,

40:17

I know you're saying, Dave, even if

40:19

we offer incentives, I'm really

40:21

worried that nobody's gonna fill this out. And

40:24

if you do that, and

40:27

that happens, I

40:29

know it's painful, but

40:32

can you not take that

40:34

as a positive of, hey, I

40:36

wanted to know if

40:38

I had an engaged audience

40:40

and I just got my answer. Now

40:43

that's not the answer we wanted. And

40:45

I know that hurts, I'm not gonna pretend it

40:47

doesn't. But at least now

40:49

you can go in and try to find

40:51

out where your audience is. We talk about this

40:53

a lot at the School of Podcasting. Find

40:56

out where your audience is. Go look at

40:58

comments in different places and find out

41:00

what they are looking for. And

41:02

maybe that's the next survey

41:04

you put out. And there, look, if

41:06

you want something super customized, you

41:09

can do that with Google Forms. There's a,

41:11

I'll put a link to a couple different

41:13

places. There's a new one I just heard

41:15

about. And I was like, that's pretty cool,

41:17

especially cause I know some people are like,

41:19

I'm not putting my stuff in Google, yeah. It's

41:22

called Tally. I believe

41:25

is how you pronounce it, T

41:27

-A -L -L -Y.S -O. But again, why

41:30

create something from scratch when you

41:32

have something built in based

41:34

on questions from people who

41:36

have been measuring podcasts for 20

41:38

years? I love it. You

41:40

know me, I'm ecstatic. I'm all

41:42

about getting feedback. And so

41:45

I'm happy that this

41:47

is launching today, November

41:49

11th, 2024. And

41:52

since I'm on the topic of

41:54

pod page, if you're on WordPress, just

41:57

know that WordFence, which is a

41:59

company I have, have to use for the

42:01

one website I have still on WordPress.

42:03

And if you're ordering Dave, why do

42:05

you have a website on WordPress?

42:07

Well, while I recommend PodPage and have

42:09

been for four years now, I

42:12

still have clients that use WordPress. And

42:14

so there's a website called WordFence,

42:16

which I have to use because people try to

42:18

hack my site and they came

42:20

out and they explained

42:22

how there are 207

42:25

vulnerable plugins in WordPress. So

42:27

just, there's

42:29

that. Oh, and by the way, the

42:31

next day after that report came out,

42:33

yeah, I got a thing from WordFence

42:35

saying that my bill was going up.

42:37

So if you need more reasons to

42:39

try PodPage, there's 207. Yeah,

42:41

yeah, yeah. I got so

42:44

much I could share from

42:46

this past weekend. I'll be

42:48

sprinkling that in as we go forward. And

42:50

of course, you can always follow the show

42:52

at skoglopodcasting .com/follow,

42:55

pick whatever app you want there and

42:58

never miss another episode. Thanks so

43:00

much for tuning in. I'm Dave

43:02

Jackson. I help podcasters. It's what

43:05

I do. And I can't wait

43:07

to see what we do

43:09

together. Until next week, take care.

43:11

God bless. Class is dismissed. If

43:14

you like what you

43:16

hear, then come tell some

43:18

lies. If you like

43:20

what you hear, then go

43:22

tell some

43:25

lies. In

43:27

this place in Indianapolis, I

43:29

was smoking. I was smoking.

43:32

Yes, I was smoking. Is

43:35

this how we're gonna start? It's only,

43:37

okay. All right. With Dr. Brad

43:39

Miller and Jen from Burble Bear,

43:41

Burble Bear, Burble Bear, really, right?

43:43

Like, okay, this is just gonna

43:45

be one of those shows. Lots

43:48

of bloopers coming your way. We do. Every

43:50

Friday we get together for lunch with Dave.

43:52

We have group coaching a couple of time

43:55

a month, a couple of time a month,

43:57

a couple of time a month. Yep. Hey,

44:08

you're still here. How cool is

44:10

that? In fact, that really means

44:13

I want to hear your opinion.

44:15

If you got a second, you're

44:17

done with the show, looking for

44:19

something to do. Go over to

44:21

School of Podcasting.com slash Survey25.

44:23

That School of

44:26

Podcasting.com/Survey25. Thanks.